Back to the renaissance art-punk bowels of New Yawk, which last we left when I reviewed the most recent Swans album, an LP I had trouble enthusing over since I was never a big Swans guy. Foetus principal JG Thirlwell, though, is definitely in my wheelhouse; I’m a fan since 1985’s Nail, which led to earlier things, much of which had, nestled within the industrial clamor, a lot of big band and swing elements, a little like what you’d hear if Jim Carrey’s Mask character were a spree killer. Thirlwell’s been spending his fourth decade of anarchic sound-age exploring more classical symphonics, such as the cello quartet one-off performance with Zola Jesus. In this one, the out-and-out evilness isn’t nearly as unsubtle as in years past, but it’s jolly black for sure, don’t worry. Album opener “The Red and Black and Gray and White” revolves around spazzy marching-band percussion, followed immediately by the spooky (but still spazzy) “Pratheism,” its wild-eyed concert-choir evoking O Fortuna visions of robe-clad sacrifices and such. Clang-and-bang industrial stomper “Warm Leatherette” is more like the Foetus I know, maliciousness wrapped in every syllable, and then we’re on to “Danger Global Warming,” in which he reinvents latter-day Skinny Puppy. A seriously mixed bag, all over the place, but unapologetically Thirlwell. A-— Eric W. Saeger